in my old age i've become staunchly seasonal, to the point where i nearly had a meltdown about realizing that it's now slightly too late to bake a pflaumenkuchen, to the point where i visited upwards of four grocery stores prematurely in search for pumpkin for pumpkin challah on rosh hashanah. {severe and sincere props to my new favorite, the 5th avenue key food... i know.} i love that pumpkin season is here. love it times a trillion. it just makes me want to dance in leg warmers to sufjan stevens near a fireplace all night long.

-yeh!!!

*if you follow me on the twitters, you know that i simply won't shut up about dog days and how it premiered this weekend. it was so amazing to be able to just play through the thing without pausing to adjust lights or intonation or other tech things. so many times i wanted to just burst into tears about some of them arias. but, boy oh boy, was i nervous! still, the idea of playing in a performance that isn't a school performance and that will potentially be reviewed by lotsa people gives me the nervous i-can-only-eat-matzoh-ball-soup tummy. i love it though and i hope that maybe you will see it?

1. this month i will turn 23. it will not be my golden birthday, like it was last year. it will not celebrate the first time that i can drink legally, like it was two years ago. no. this month, i will turn michael jordan's chicago bulls number. and i couldn't be more comfortable about being rather tall.

2. this month will be my last living on the upper west side. does moving out of the neighborhood of one's school signify something about becoming a grown-up? let's pretend. and let's pretend for a moment that next year i will actually stick to my plan of biking into manhattan from brooklyn every day. what a good butt i will have. also, i hope that in my new neighborhood i can recreate this comfortable feeling that i get in my current neighborhood that comes from seeing my regular taco truck, my regular corner donut man, churro woman, my regular neighbor evan.

3. jesca hoop is who i've been listening to this morning. she opened for punch brothers. it took me many minutes on google to realize that she is "jesca" and not "jessica," but it was worth it, and in another life i would want to be similar to her.

4. my eating habits have spun out of control. a rob coffee date turns into a rob short rib sandwich date, i nonchalantly had fried green tomatoes during the middle set at dizzy's last night. i haven't been to the grocery store in weeks. in april, this worried me. but now it's my birthday month so i can eat whatever i want, correct?

5. lol @ "birthday week" expanding to "birthday month." life is simply too short for your birthday to just be a week.

6. my body has seen a ridiculous amount of hives in the past week. mum thinks i've tout à coup developed an allergy to something that i'm exposed to regularly. could you imagine if it was an allergy to sugar? or lemons? unfortunately, it's definitely not vegetables since i haven't had them on a regular basis in many days. maybe it's my penguin, or may, or shampoo.

7. the david little opera dog days is something that i can't stop thinking about. it is one of the most ferocious pieces of music that i've ever heard. the story, the lyrics, the use of vibrator on brake drum: it is brilliant. and though i love this month, performing in september's premiere is something that i am very much looking forward to.

it is a super dark and scary play... one of those things where everyone gets sad and dies and bleeds black blood.

it is exactly the opposite of anything i'd attend on my own, but after seeing the work that has gone into this production, and really really getting to know the play, i have this new wild appreciation for 17th century dramas.

all of the actors and production people are so talented and awesome and they have made the zillions of rehearsal hours go by easy as pie.

i am a little nervous about having to stay out past my bedtime every day for the next month, but i'm confident it will be worth it!